Cool off this summer with a DIY Sponge Crown The House That Lars Built

Picture this: it’s summertime, maybe even the 4th of July. You and the fam are running around in some massive grass field and the smell of your favorite barbecue wafts through the air toward you. A kid shuffles past you, seeming tired and hot after hours of play. The remedy? A DIY Sponge Crown! The perfect solution for hot summer days.

Materials:

How it works

Simply dunk the DIY sponge crown in water, hold a mini-coronation, and crown the king/queen of the summer! The sponges will hold enough water to slowly drip down and keep the kids cool while keeping their shape. We played around with this idea and made our DIY sponge crown out of stars!

How often is it that a cooling accessory actually looks cool? You won’t see me with one of those clunky fans around my neck this summer. Sweat bands? I’ll pass. Crown me.

Where to wear your sponge crown

This DIY sponge crown would be so much fun to make at a child’s birthday party. The supplies are cheap, the process is simple, and the product is truly fun. Then, the kids could run around and play water games!

If that’s not an option right now, a family picnic/camping trip to the backyard would be made much more exciting with this usable craft. I’m imagining what the photos would look like – adorable!! Does your community have a summer parade or festival? Ours has a bike parade where all the kids get on their bikes and ride around the main street. Your children will feel like the belles of the ball with their crowns on, and you won’t have to worry about them overheating!

How to make your DIY Sponge Crown

Supplies:

Find all of the supplies needed here!

Instructions:

First, use the paint markers to paint each of your wooden dowels your choice of red, white, and blue. We also including some gold ones! We used 6 long dowels and cut them to varying lengths.
Set aside the dowels to dry.
Cut stars and other desired shapes out of your sponges, in varying sizes. You can draw the shape on lightly with a marker or pen and then use scissors to cut out the shape.
Gently slide a dowel into each sponge shape.
Stick the dowels into the styrofoam wreath form, being careful to make the dowel stick straight up not angled at all.
Once you have arranged all of your desired dowels, with the sponge shapes on top, into the styrofoam, use a hot glue gun to glue them firmly in place.
Use hot glue to wrap ribbon around the styrofoam form for a final pretty touch.
Your crown is not ready to use! Run the sponges on the crown under water, place it on your child’s head (or yours!) and a cooling stream of water will refresh you!

Note: If you are worried about the crown falling off, you can hot glue it to a head band, or add additional ribbon or twine to tie it on with a bow under their chin! Like we did on Jasper below.